


Forward Momentum

by Trobadora



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Growth, Episode 4.14 - Bad Luck, Episode Related, Female Friendship, Fix-It, Gen, anger issues, hexenbiests, post-episode 4.14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25514998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/pseuds/Trobadora
Summary: Juliette has turned into a Hexenbiest, Nick can't deal, and Juliette can't deal with that - or with herself. The only thing left to do is leave - but for where?Instead of sleeping in her car, Juliette drives.
Relationships: Juliette Silverton & Alicia, background Juliette Silverton/Nick Burkhardt
Comments: 14
Kudos: 17
Collections: Every Woman 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Entwinedlove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entwinedlove/gifts).



> Many thanks to my fabulous Portland picker Sanguinity and my equally fabulous beta Shopfront, without whom this story would not be what it is.
> 
> Juliette's friend Alicia appeared in the season 3 episodes _Red Menace_ and _Eyes of the Beholder_. You said you liked canon divergence and friendships between women, and I thought she was perfect for giving Juliette something she sorely lacked in season 4.

JULIETTE  
So this is what I am now, forever?

HENRIETTA  
There's nothing anyone can do to change that, Juliette.  
You have to learn to live with it.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Chapter 1   
  


Juliette stops the car by the side of the road, leans her forehead against the top of the wheel, and tries not to cry. Tries not to scream. Tries not to want to rip everything within reach to shreds.

"We're going to get through this," Nick had said, looking off to the side, not meeting her eyes, and she'd known right then that they wouldn't. When she'd needed him to comfort her, he'd walked out. When she'd needed him to look at her and see _her_ , not what she was becoming, he'd flinched from her as if from something vile.

She can't stand it, that look on his face, forcing himself to suffer her touch. Can't stand him pretending it will somehow be okay. She can't, she can't, she can't.

She'd had to walk out. She'd gotten into her car and left, cold fury and hot grief boiling inside her, mixing into something vicious. Something in her, now, knows how to make him hurt for making her feel this way. Knows how to squeeze his windpipe from the inside, reach into his guts. How to make the pictures on the wall and the knives in the kitchen and the bowl on the table fly at his head.

Some part in her _wants_ to, now. She used to find it easy to be kind - she's turning into something she's not.

What else could she have done? She'd left.

There's no going back, no changing back: what she was is lost to her. Her old life is lost to her. 

Juliette's eyes feel hot behind her eyelids, pressure building. Her lips wobble; her mouth twists. She can feel it under her skin, that other face wanting out. It ripples over her, skin tightening and withering, senses focusing; then it slides away as the tears fall.

Alone in her car, as the sky grows dim, Juliette sits and cries.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Something roars, and Juliette flinches, head going up, back straightening. She stares at the road: streetlights, front porches of houses, windows lit up against the evening's darkness. She's just around the corner from home.

She's in her car, and she'd drifted off. A motorbike going past snapped her awake. 

Juliette's fingers clench around the steering wheel, everything inside her roiling. Damn, is she really going to sleep in her car? 

No, she's not. She's _not_.

She has to do something. Find some answer, some solution. Make someone give her one. There has to be someone who can.

And if not?

Stomping out that thought, Juliette almost reaches for her phone. It's turned off, though - she doesn't want to turn it back on. Can't look at who might have called - or who might not have.

She has to ... she has to _go_. Somewhere. Anywhere.

With a quick snap of her hand, before she can change her mind, Juliette starts the car.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Juliette is driving: straight up MLK, then straight down Lombard, the fewer turns the better. The lights across St. Johns Bridge are glittering reflected on the river below. Juliette stares mulishly ahead as she crosses, toward the trees of Forest Park rising dimly into darkness on the opposite side. Her eyes are burning.

The hum of the motor is a steady roar in her ears, too stark somehow, grating and soothing at the same time. She hits Highway 30 - going north, away from the city - and keeps driving.

Where can she go? She can follow the road. Her foot on the gas, her hands on the wheel, all she has to do is keep going.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Juliette drives.

The road ahead is a stretch of asphalt lit by her headlights, surrounded by deep dark. Her fingers remain clenched around the wheel; her spine is straight and tense, not touching the back of her seat. She stares ahead into the night - the road, and the tall trees that briefly shape themselves out of the darkness as she passes, then fade again behind.

She drives through the darkness, through forest, past the occasional house with lit windows, past glimpses of river to her right, a glitter of water illuminated by something-or-other. Through Scappoose, and on, away from people, into the blackness ahead.

Every now and then, lights move towards her and go past, someone driving towards Portland. Every now and then, someone overtakes her, brief brightness in her rearview mirror turning into fading tail lights ahead. 

She's driving well below the speed limit. Juliette isn't going anywhere, only _going_ : So long as she keeps driving, she can do this. So long as she lets the road carry her forward, she won't fall apart.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Time passes, and the road continues. Juliette drives on. Her neck is stiff and tense, her jaw clenched, as if the tension could keep that other face from coming out. Her skin feels too tight.

She can do this. She can. Just so long as -

_A parking lot, and a car's engine exploding, the hood thrown open by its force. Juliette protesting, "That wasn't me." But it was._

Fear sears through her at the memory. She could explode her own car too, just like that, without even meaning to. She could explode the trees, those black shapes in the darkness. She could. So easily, she could.

Why is everything about her life out of her control? Juliette wants to scream, but there's no one to scream at but herself.

Damn, she should have gone to confront _someone_. Not Nick, no - she can't stand that look on his face, never wants to see it again. But - Monroe, Rosalee. Someone. Sean, who introduced her to Henrietta, for all the use that was.

Why is no one doing anything that _helps_? Why aren't they helping her? Someone has to know how to actually do something. Trying doesn't matter - Nick is trying, and she hates it. Hates, hates, hates. She knows what's wrong with her - what's wrong with everyone else? 

If someone doesn't do something soon, she'll - she'll -

She doesn't scream. Nothing explodes. Juliette only drives.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Time feels stretched thin, tenuously real on this impromptu night-time road trip. When Juliette hits Astoria, she has to shake away the haze that's covering her thoughts. Slowing down, she catches a glimpse of superfreighters anchored in the river, their lights glittering on the water, and then the Astoria bridge crossing the Columbia into Washington. How is she already at the coast?

Not far enough, not by far: she has to go further. 

Juliette grits her teeth, pulls into a Mini-Mart's gas station, watches a grumpy-faced attendant shuffle towards her. She's impatient to be moving again.

It doesn't hit her until she's back on the highway driving south, crossing dark water that fades into deeper darkness on either side of her: she hadn't even thought about it. She'd just stopped for gas, handed the attendant her card, let him do his job, and moved on. Ordinary, unremarkable.

Too ordinary, when she isn't, not any more.

It unsettles her, almost more than if something had blown up. It makes things look infuriatingly _possible_. How dare this taunt her with hope for - for -

Nick's face flashes through her memory, tight with effort, suppressing disgust.

Juliette snarls at her windshield. What does it matter, either way? She'll just ... keep moving, carried by her own momentum, for as long as she can.

  
  


* * *

  
  


On and on: how far? Juliette won't think about that. The highway stretches ahead, south along the coast. She's only starting out. So what if she drives all the way down to San Francisco?

There's nothing there for her, though, no more than in Portland. Nothing for her anywhere, now.

Damn, she needs more. Needs this to be over. Yes - it needs to just stop, this whole ridiculous Hexenbiest thing. Things needs to go back to normal. _Right now._

(They can't. They won't. She knows.)

All this power, all these crazy powers - why can a Hexenbiest do this to her, but not turn her back? Why can a Zaubertrank only ever do terrible things to her? Throw her into a coma, steal her memories, make her obsessed with a man she barely knew, steal her boyfriend and make him hate her. She won't accept it. Someone has to be able to do something about this! She needs _help_. 

Yes, that's right - someone has to help her; there has to be someone she can get to make this right. Sean surely could try harder - make Henrietta try harder -

A sob wrings itself from her throat, and she wipes at her eyes, blinking to clear her vision. 

She passes through Seaside, thinks of weekends at the beach. Even before this - when's the last time she and Nick took even a day for themselves? A memory of laughter and sunshine, of strolling along the shore together - it feels a lifetime away.

Everything else always comes first, doesn't it? Nick's Grimm business, Nick's enemies, Nick's problems. Monroe's and Rosalee's problems, too, and all right, fair enough, Monroe had almost died - he'd needed their help. But she needs help too! What about her? _Damn you all, what about me?_

Juliette wants to smash something, break it apart. Why can't she come first for anyone? Not even Nick. And without Nick ...

Everyone in her life who knows about Wesen is Nick's friend first. (Or enemy, or ally, or whatever. Who cares!) There's no one for her to turn to who is on _her_ side first.

Juliette bites her lower lip. Damn, sometimes she wishes she'd never met Nick. Where would she be? Not here in her car in the middle of the night, alone and furious and helpless, all because she'd helped Nick. 

What if she'd found someone else, or even stayed with one of the men she dated back at college? They weren't all terrible, no matter what Alicia said. Raoul is still -

Wait.

_Alicia._

The thought stutters through her mind, takes several moments to fully settle in.

Juliette's been friends with Alicia since college, since long before she had any idea what a Wesen or a Grimm might be. And yeah, they haven't been as close as during those years together in the dorms, not since Alicia got with that idiot Joe - but that's over now; the divorce went through a few months back. Alicia is living in Portland now, even - never went back to Seattle after splitting from Joe.

And Alicia is a Fuchsbau.

Juliette takes a shuddering breath. The strings of tension that held her so stiffly grow slack. She slumps back in her seat. Yes - she'll go talk to Alicia. She can do that.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Doubt comes next. Can she really dump all this on Alicia? The harshness, the bleakness of what she's become - the capacity for violence? Alicia is used to Juliette being friendly, and helpful, and fun. And hasn't Alicia had enough of violence, with Joe?

But when things had gotten unbearable with Joe, Alicia had come to her. Why shouldn't Juliette do the same, now that things with Nick are ... as they are?

Juliette twitches, involuntarily, at the comparison. That's not right. Nick isn't like Joe. Nick is a good guy. He just ... he can't deal, and right now, Juliette can't deal with that.

Maybe Alicia won't, either. But Alicia is her friend. _Hers._ Alicia is hers.

When Juliette reaches the interchange, rather than continuing along the coast, she takes the exit onto Highway 26. 

Back to Portland. To Alicia.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Going east. How late is it? The sky is already lightening ahead, the darkness beside the road gaining features, trees and fields taking shape first in a dim grey, then slowly gaining color.

Then the early-morning sun breaks out - not quite straight ahead, but close enough, the Sunset Highway becoming a sunrise highway for Juliette. Driving into the sun is no less dangerous this way round, and - damn, Juliette has no sunglasses with her. She pulls down the sun visor and squints ahead.

The brightness should be giving her more trouble, shouldn't it?

A mile or two later, Juliette blinks, opens her eyes fully. She's driving into blinding light, staring into the sun, and her eyes are fine.

Something roils in her stomach, shivers under her skin. It hurts, the way the sunlight should and doesn't. More changes. She's not herself, not any more. Everything's wrong: even her eyes are no longer hers. 

She wants herself back.

All she can do is drive, and keep driving as fields give way to suburbia, as the road gently crests then plummets down the West Hills, through the tunnel that takes her downtown. 

Juliette continues on like a woman possessed, across the river, through Southeast to the forest remnants and strip malls of 122nd. Straight ahead: relentlessly propelled forward, past '70s houses and flat-roofed industrial-style buildings, unwilling to think of stopping, or of what will happen when she does. This early, the streets are still fairly empty. There's nothing in her way but the occasional traffic light.

It's not until she passes the unpaved streets near Alicia's building that she realizes she's almost there.

When's the last time she came this way? It can't have been as long ago as last year. After she'd left Joe, Alicia had stayed with Nick and Juliette for a few days, then had found an apartment here in East Portland. Juliette had helped her move in. She's been there since, just a time or two. Why not more often?

They've met up downtown a few times, too, but they still mainly talk on the phone. As if Alicia were still up in Seattle and not right here in Portland. Why?

_Because my life is crazy. Because it was crazy even before this._

Juliette stomps on the urge to get back onto Powell and drive on, all the way to Mount Hood and the high desert beyond. She's doing this. She is. She pulls into the parking lot, into shadow, high Douglas Firs blocking out the early morning sun, and turns off the engine.

Damn, she should have called ahead. Then she'd have a reason not to back out now.

But then she'd have had to find words, something to say. 

She still has no words, no reason, no excuse - only the forward momentum still carrying her, the knowledge she can't stop. If she stops, something terrible will happen; she's sure of it. 

She climbs the open-air stairwell nestled in the recess between Alicia's building and the next, and then there she is, on the landing in front of Alicia's door. She's practically vibrating with tension, and ouch - the bannister is vibrating too, ringing with it. Damn, damn, damn - she needs to get this under control.

Juliette grits her teeth, squeezes her eyes shut, and tries to force her will on the world. For once, it actually works.

She lets out a cautious breath. Almost turns on her heel and leaves again, to try and find someone she can shake until they fix this for her. That's easier, surely. But she's come all this way. Quickly, before she can change her mind - _forward momentum_ \- she raps her knuckles against the door. And then, when - of course - there is no immediate response, she does it again, harder.

And again, until she hears something moving inside. Her hearing's changed, too, hasn't it? Everything is wrong about her. Her body isn't her body any more. She hates it, except when she doesn't.

She doesn't know herself any more.

The door opens, and a bleary-eyed Alicia stares at her, brown hair mussed and pillow creases on her face. "Juliette? What are you doing here this early in the day?"

Juliette stares at her - at her innocent friend who will probably, like everyone else, recoil from what Juliette is turning into. She can't meet that kind of look, she can't. She wants to turn and run. Or maybe lash out. She doesn't know what she wants, or what she'll do.

Her chin wobbles. Her mouth opens, and works, and her face twists into an entirely human grimace as she flings herself at her friend. She's clinging to Alicia, sobbing into her shoulder before she knows how she got there.

She's here. And she's stopped, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Juliette sits stiffly on Alicia's couch, holding a mug of coffee in hands so tense she can see her own sinews stand out, almost the way they do when her ugly other self comes out. She's said nothing yet. She knows she needs to. But she's no longer on the road, and she's lost the force that drove her. 

Her fingers tighten further. Any moment now she'll shatter the mug with a strength she shouldn't have, spilling hot liquid all over herself.

Will it hurt, or is she no longer human enough for that?

Juliette takes a shuddering breath, forces one hand to let go, and wipes at her face. Alicia hands her a tissue.

"Did you break up with Nick?" 

Juliette, eyes clenching tight, lets out an incoherent sound, not a whine and not a scream but high-pitched and raw, like something's being ripped from her this very moment. _Nick._

Alicia starts, sucks in a breath. "Juliette?"

"I don't know," she manages. "I - I seriously don't know." She doesn't know anything anymore.

"What happened? You were together for so long."

Juliette shakes her head. All those years with Nick - it was good, wasn't it? Even when things were hard, it was _good_. They were a team. Until - well. 

It doesn't matter. She can't have it back. 

She came here for a reason. There are words she needs to say. But she can't force them out of her throat. Having arrived where she was going, she's somehow even more lost.

Alicia leans forward, nudges her shoulder. Juliette wants to flinch, or to slap her hand away - one or the other. Instead she only sits there and swallows, looks at Alicia's warm eyes, her uncombed hair and the bathrobe she's put on over her pajamas. It's ... homey.

Juliette doesn't fit here. Not now. She shouldn't have come.

She's been silent too long. "You seemed happy," Alicia says. "Not like me. He was nice." She grimaces, her nose scrunching. "For a Grimm."

Not so long ago, Juliette would have laughed. Before _this_ , the thought of Nick being a threat, something to fear, had always been slightly humorous, absurd to its core.

It's not now - it never was. It's in Juliette's bones now, too, that knowledge: a Grimm is a terrible thing. A hunter with an axe, coming for you. She's had that nightmare - that fear.

 _I was afraid you were going to kill me,_ she'd said. Nick had denied it, of course. But he hadn't comforted her.

Nick isn't like that, but ... it's scary, being Wesen. She doesn't think Nick gets that. She never understood it either, before.

"He's nice," Juliette says, suddenly furious, the lump in her throat dissolving under the swell of it, words spilling out. "Such a nice Grimm, towards everyone. Until it's me. Apparently a Blutbad is fine, and a Zauberbiest is fine, but I'm not."

Alicia gasps. "A Zauberbiest?"

And Juliette freezes, hot anger turning icy. Damn. Hexenbiests and Zauberbiests - of course Alicia isn't going to be fine with either. Of course this isn't going to go better than it did with Nick.

No, no, she doesn't want to remember. She'd been nerving herself up to a confession for so long - and then, a gun in her face; awkward, frantic explanations, and in the end, just when she thought she might be getting through to him, Nick walking out. Just like that.

She'd been desperate, almost begging him to comfort her, and he'd left.

 _Not again._ It settles over her like a blanket that's been stored in the freezer, the chill of her own fury. Even the mug of coffee in her hands feels cold now. She must have sucked the heat out of it, unthinking. This is what she is now, what she does.

Why is she even here? They're none of them on her side. They'll all flinch from her. Why should Alicia be any different? Alicia likes the old Juliette - the _nice_ one.

No, she won't suffer that again.

(Sean didn't flinch. But _he_ is half Zauberbiest. It doesn't count, even if it makes him the only one she trusts with this, even a little. She should have gone to him. Well, she still can. Later. After this.)

It's storming under her skin, the knowledge of everything she is, everything that's been forced on her. The thing that means she'll be rejected. It feeds her fury. It makes her want to shove the truth, frigid and cutting as it is, into people's faces.

Into Nick's face. Into Alicia's.

It must be showing: Alicia's expression turns wary. As it should. 

"Juliette?"

"I changed," she says, too sharply. Her mind is churning. She feels power under her skin like shards of ice, and knows how to use it, how to summon it out. She only has to lift her hand. She's not lacking for words now - cold rage is its own kind of momentum, bearing her onwards. "He couldn't take it."

_He changed, and I had to take it. I changed, and he -_

"Changed?"

Fingers clenched, Juliette bares her teeth in a furious smile. "Hang on," she says, faux-brightly. She sets the mug down on the coffee table, leans forward, lifts her hands in a ta-da gesture, and woges.

She's really getting the hang of this.

Alicia jerks back, wogeing on instinct as well, human features turning foxlike in an instant. She lets out a short, high-pitched squeak, and then sits frozen like that - leaning back with eyes too wide and fingers covering her half-open lips. Then, slowly, she pulls further away. Backing away from Juliette. Of course.

Juliette knows how fearsome she looks, all dead and desiccated like some ancient bog body. She knows, too, that her looks are the least thing to fear about a Hexenbiest. 

Juliette fixes a frosty stare on Alicia, not letting her woge go, not just yet. Alicia _should_ be afraid, if that's how she's going to react!

"See what I mean?" she asks pointedly, and watches Alicia's mouth work soundlessly, no words coming out.

Alicia keeps staring, fully woged, her fur bristling. "You ..." Her voice is a toneless whisper.

Juliette leans forward abruptly, just to see her flinch. But Alicia's cringe is too familiar - too like the way Alicia shrunk back from Joe, toward the end. Unease stirs in Juliette's stomach.

She nearly lets her anger carry her forward anyway, but - _Joe._

That one thought stops her dead. Shatters her icy certainty. Damn it, no, she's not Joe! She's not some abusive fuckhead who's beating his wife. How dare Alicia look at her like this! She's not a danger! She isn't, she isn't, she isn't.

It resonates inside her, builds up, comes out like a screech that isn't sound, that's only audible to some other sense she doesn't understand. 

The wooden coffee table explodes into a cloud of splinters. Alicia ducks under an arm, a futile gesture of protection: the real threat is elsewhere, after all.

Juliette is not like that? Yes - yes, she is. 

Horror settles over her skin along with the sawdust.

"Sorry," Juliette whispers tonelessly, her skin prickling as her woge falls away. She brushes splinters from her hands, buries hot tears in her palms. If she doesn't look at the destruction she's wrought, maybe it won't be real.

She pulls her knees up. Yeah, right.

She's lost. Her forward momentum only brought her to this, but without it, she's entirely lost.

Curled in on herself, she hears Alicia move away. Of course. 

The word turns hazy around her. Only fragments of reality seep through the roaring in her head: the sound of a broom, of a shovel scraping over the carpet, a hand brush going over the couch right next to her. Alicia dares? Juliette is almost impressed. But it's not the first time Alicia's cleaned up the result of uncontrolled violence, is it?

The thought stings, and keeps stinging worse the longer it sits there in Juliette's head, but it won't be dislodged. _No._

On the other side of the room, the hoover turns on.

No, she can't be like that. She won't. No matter what she's turned into, she won't be _that_. Not for Alicia. She refuses. 

Long minutes later, an eternity of running in mental circles, Juliette manages to make herself look up. 

Alicia has cleaned herself up. She's free of sawdust and dressed for the day, her hair in a neat pony tail. She sneaks a glance towards Juliette, then ducks her head when she finds Juliette looking back. She swallows, then looks back at Juliette. Turns off the hoover and leans the handle against the wall. "Are you done?"

Juliette starts. "What?" 

Alicia walks across the room with a quiet determination that hurts to watch. Damn, Juliette never wants to see Alicia braced like this again. Juliette wraps her arms more tightly around her knees. What has she done?

But Alicia is braver than she looks - braver than she used to be. She stops in front of Juliette. "You don't get to scare me," she says, quiet but firm. "Do you want me to break my china over your head? Hit you with my frying pan?" The way Juliette had fought Joe, that day when he'd come to Juliette's house to drag Alicia home by force. "It's a good pan; I don't want to dent it."

When did Alicia get this strong? But she'd joined in, with Joe, at the end. She'd fought rather than running. And they'd won, together, even before Nick arrived on the scene to arrest Joe.

Alicia sits down on the couch again, leaving only a little more space between them than before. Juliette feels the dip in the upholstery like the tipping-over of her life, solid ground lost.

Even the certainty of her abandonment is no longer certain. Raging at the world is easier than this.

Alicia looks at her, swallows. "You were human. All Kehrseite. How?" 

That's not what she should be asking. How about _Do you do that now, just explode things at people?_ \- or, more to the point, _Are you going to hurt me?_

Maybe with her arms wrapped around her knees, looking miserable, Juliette doesn't seem so scary after all. Or maybe Alicia really is that brave.

"What else? A Hexenbiest." Juliette laughs, high and artificial and unhappy. "She cursed Nick. I helped him break the curse. There were side effects."

All this because _she_ accepted what Nick had become. Embraced the Grimm. She'd wanted a normal life, but she'd wanted Nick more. And now that it's taken its toll on her, the Grimm won't embrace her.

If he had - if he might still -

But no. He didn't. Damn, she hates him. Some moments, these days, she really hates him. When he claims things will be just fine, all the more.

"I'll say." Alicia blinked. "Are you really ..."

"I found someone to look into it. It's real. It can't be undone." _This is what's forever._ Juliette almost woges again just to hide her wobbling lips, her once more overspilling eyes. "It's real," she repeats, her voice a bleak whisper. 

Alicia blinks, digs into her pocket and hands her a new tissue. It only makes her cry harder.

"I'm not ... under control," she says eventually, her voice hoarse. "I can't ... I didn't mean to do that." Except in the moment, when she had. "I can't ..."

"Juliette?" Alicia asks eventually, when her sobs subside. "Are you okay?"

And just that simple question is enough to make the tears spill over again.

Nick never asked. Not even that much. He walked out on her instead, and then had the gall to come back with fake assurances belied by his obvious revulsion.

He can't deal with it, with her. It's maybe not all his fault - it's because of Adalind, because of what Adalind did to him; she's the one who deserves the blame - but that doesn't _help_ , damn it. That doesn't make it hurt any less.

"I know," Juliette says, wretchedly. "Hexenbiests aren't nice. And I'm, I'm ..." She shakes her head, unable to find the right words. "I can't even hold it all in." She grimaces. "Pretty sure you don't like Hexenbiests either. No one does."

Alicia swallows. Meets her eyes head-on, which is more than Nick managed. "You're my friend. It's ..." She smiles, bravely. "It's okay if it's you."

And Juliette has to squeeze her eyes shut again, holds out her hand blindly. Reaching.

It's shocking nonetheless when Alicia takes it, squeezes, holds on. It's shocking when Alicia's arm comes around her. And when Alicia whispers, very quietly, "I'm not afraid of dangerous people. Not any more," as if she's simply decided she can handle this, and that's that.

It's never this simple. It can't be. But Juliette holds on to her, desperately wanting to believe.

  
  


* * *

  
  


"I need to leave for work in a few minutes," Alicia says eventually. "Is your suitcase still in your car?"

Juliette shakes her head, dizzied by the mundanity. She hadn't even thought of bringing anything. Hadn't thought of anything but getting away, and then getting to Alicia. "I didn't bring one."

"Oh." Alicia shrugs, too familiar with such circumstances, even if they weren't exactly the same. "You can go back, right? Get your things? He won't ... do anything stupid and Grimm-y?"

Juliette shakes her head, feeling like she's sleep-walking. How can Alicia act so normally, after what Juliette just did? "I'll go some time when he's at work." She grimaces. "We had a ... thing yesterday. A fight. It was a fight. I left. I just got into my car, and ..." Truthfully, everything after that is a bit of a blur. "Can you believe I drove all the way out to Astoria, just to get away?"

Going somewhere. Moving, rather than being trapped. That felt good. Now? She doesn't know what's next. The only momentum she can summon is destructive anger, and _she won't be like that._ Juliette clings to that thought, the only certainty she's found.

But who is she if she isn't furious? She's needed the fury to handle what she's become.

"Oh my god," Alicia says, reading something entirely different from her words. "You haven't slept all night, have you?"

"I'm fine," Juliette says blankly. Sleep is the furthest thing from her mind.

"You can take my bed." Alicia nods with the assurance of someone who has a plan. "Go have a shower and lie down, and get some rest while I go to work." She hesitates. "If you need me here, I can call in sick."

Juliette bristles. "You don't have to babysit me!"

Alicia snorts. "Do you remember when I left Joe? You told me I didn't have to do this alone."

Juliette twitches. Looks away. She doesn't think she'll be able to sleep. But Alicia probably needs to get some space of her own, away from Juliette. No matter how brave Alicia is - Juliette is _this_ now. She's what everyone fears. And she's out of control.

Really, Alicia should stop pretending.

"You're not worried I'll blow up the rest of your apartment?" It comes out sharply, a knife wielded in self-defense.

Alicia scrunches up her nose. "Do you think you're the first Wesen who's ever used their powers without meaning to? We were all teenagers once, wogeing for the first time." Despite the breezy words, the look she gives Juliette is not entirely steady. She snorts - pushing through the fear, determinedly reaching for humor. "Bet Hexenbiests have a lot of fun that way. Their poor mothers."

Juliette stares. Alicia doesn't know about the Verfluchte Zwillingsschwester, about the entire bizarre chain of events that led from Adalind impersonating Juliette in order to steal Nick's powers to _this_ , and so she's reaching for a mundane way of framing what's going on with Juliette. Well, the Wesen version of mundane.

Which is its own thing, Juliette suddenly realizes. Normality all the same, just a different brand. Not that she's ever heard anyone apply that to Hexenbiests before. But maybe ...

A snort breaks free from Juliette's nose. She gasps, and then she's laughing, hysterically, until she's crying again. Alicia, expression deadpan, hands her another tissue.

Can it be? Can it really be that all the weirdness surrounding her, the destruction - can all that really be seen as just a normal part of growing up Wesen? It's absurd. It has to be.

"I'll just ... lie down," Juliette says weakly. Her head is spinning. "You go to work. Don't risk your job over this." 

Alicia's job matters to her, even more after the role it played in escalating things with Joe. The veterinary hospital she'd worked at, back in Seattle, had closed down that location, and Joe hadn't wanted her to find a new job. Had wanted her to depend on him. He'd always been touchy about her earning more than him. 

He'd tried. But this time, Alicia hadn't taken the bullying. They'd fought; she'd walked out. Then she'd moved to Portland, wasted no time getting herself licensed, and found a new job. Good on her.

Alicia hesitates. "Okay." She gets Juliette a nightgown, and then stands there awkwardly for a second. Just as Juliette is about to snap at her, Alicia is suddenly hugging Juliette, squeezing hard. 

"You'll be okay," Alicia whispers. And then she's gone.

Juliette stands there, mouth open, like a fool, and does not feel all that dangerous, for once.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Though it's bright daylight outside, Alicia's bedroom is dim when Juliette turns off the lights. The curtains are heavy, and drawn tight. Alicia always complained about insufficient darkness at the dorms, and Joe insisted on letting sunlight in, but here, Alicia finally has the bedroom she deserves.

Juliette's eyes sting as she slides between the sheets. Alicia's bed is warm and comfortable, isolated from the world, the heavy quilt comforting like a hug. Like Alicia's hug. 

Not like Nick's presence, felt in their shared bedroom even when he isn't there. Damn, she used to feel safe with Nick, before this - how did it get to this?

They used to make each other stronger. But they've lost that. Because of Adalind, they've lost that. Juliette wants to rip her to shreds.

Well, later. Not right now.

In a bed that never had Nick in it, tension drains from her body as if sinking away into the mattress beneath her. In a house where Nick isn't, Juliette's sleep, for the first time in weeks, is deep and restful. And when, hours later, she drifts awake, it's nothing like the abrupt jolt to consciousness she's endured lately, the sudden crashing-down of everything wrong in her life.

Has the tension between her and Nick been wearing her down so much?

She feels human, even though she isn't. She feels ... is this what it feels like, normally, being Wesen? Maybe, after all, she can be all right with this, even without the fury that's held her upright.

If only she can figure out how to move forward without it. Or where she could possibly go.

  
  


* * *

  
  


"I brought ice cream!" Alicia announces when she comes home. "And champagne." She lifts both out of her bag, brandishing them in triumph.

Like she used to when they were living in the dorms, after Juliette broke up with a boyfriend. Like they're still the same people, despite everything in between.

It's absurd, and Juliette's heart aches. She can't be this ordinary any more, can she?

Other Wesen can, though. Why not she?

They sit on the couch together, improvising a replacement for the missing coffee table out of the bedside table and a kitchen stool. "You're buying me a new one, by the way," Alicia says, matter-of fact, and Juliette almost smiles.

She feels like she's playing a part, trying out normalcy like a pair of shoes already proven to pinch, and finding them strange but not painful on her feet, after all. The TV is on, showing some kitschy movie neither of them is paying attention to, something to fill the silences.

Alicia pulls out her tablet, and makes Juliette browse coffee tables. They start out on Amazon - "for inspiration," Alicia says: "I'm not deciding today! Such things need to be _considered_." It's what she used to say when she was taking her sweet time deciding on takeout, and Juliette, catapulted back to their college days, finds herself snorting, then flinching, taken aback by her own amusement.

"This one looks like it was picked up from a dump," she says, trying not to lose the moment. _Forward momentum,_ that's the trick, right? It worked before, when it drove her all the way to the coast, when it brought her here. When her fury kept her going, rather than fall into despair. Maybe normalcy can be its own force.

"I've seen prettier things in dumps." Alicia takes a sip from her champagne glass, scrolls down. 

Juliette tries. "This one's carried by an elephant." It comes out too flat, but Alicia only throws her a glance, scrolls on.

There's an abomination consisting of some gnarly piece of wood supporting a kidney-shaped glass table surface that has them both rolling their eyes at the same time, and it jolts through Juliette like a connection. She reaches for words, some kind of joke, but it slips from her grasp.

She eats some ice cream to cover for it.

Paging forward, there's a table with tentacle-shaped legs. And one with human legs. And with bronze snakes. The snakes' curled tails are on the floor; their heads penetrate the glass plate and curve out over it. 

"Oh," says Alicia. "This one's actually strangely pretty." 

"Really?" Juliette asks incredulously. Could be worse. "Maybe if you put hats on the snake heads, the way we did with Miriam's terrible Yoda figurine."

It's not until Alicia grins at her that Juliette realizes she's found words after all. Maybe she can do this.

"Sounds great," Alicia tells her.

"You want it?" Can she keep this up? Will it take her anywhere?

"Window-shopping only," Alicia says firmly. "You're getting me something I can actually use. There's not even storage under this one."

Juliette considers. "Want to look at practical tables, then?"

Alicia snorts. "No. These are more fun. Oh, look, this one looks like the one my parents used to have when I was little." She's got that nostalgic smile that means a decent childhood.

And Alicia's parents are still alive, aren't they? Living somewhere up near the Canadian border, if Juliette recalls correctly. Family. Connections. Does Juliette still have any? None she can talk to, right now. She suddenly envies Alicia with a fierceness that shocks her.

"You don't mind, being further away from your parents?"

Alicia scowls. "We don't really talk. You know we don't. Why'd you think I moved to Portland when I wanted away from Joe?"

"I thought the tension was because they didn't approve of Joe?" And clearly they'd been right. Juliette had thought Alicia wasn't ready to hear people dragging her choices back then. She'd needed unconditional support, and Juliette was where she'd gone for it.

And now, here Juliette is. Maybe this makes sense, after all. But why haven't Alicia and her parents talked since then? 

Alicia bites her lips. She woges briefly, looks away. "It wasn't just about Joe being ... Joe. My father said things, about Mischehen and sticking to our own kind, and. Well."

"Mischehen?" It sounds German, and she's still lousy at pronouncing it.

"Mixed marriages. Between different kinds of Wesen. You haven't heard that word?"

Ah. So Alicia's Fuchsbau parents hadn't approved of her marrying a Klaustreich. No wonder that had made it harder for Alicia to come to her parents for help, when it had turned out she needed it.

Juliette shakes her head. "Not the word. But yeah. You didn't hear about the big dust-up here in Portland? It was just a month ago." She presses her lips together. "We ... no, Nick has friends. A couple. He's a Blutbad, she's Fuchsbau. They're great - really sweet. But these jerks went after them and nearly killed him." She bares her teeth. "We got them for that. Hope they rot in prison, all of them that survived."

Alicia's eyes go wide. "You were involved with that?" So she has heard about it.

Yeah. And she's still proud of that, Nick or no Nick. She grins, fiercely. And Alicia grins back at her. 

But that's Nick's world. Even if it made her feel good, using her powers in that fight - it's nothing to carry her forward. She needs something that is _hers_.

"Fuck the segregationists," Alicia snarls. "My marriage was a mistake. But it wasn't because Joe's a Klaustreich."

"No," Juliette agrees. "It was because Joe's a jerk. I knew that before I knew Wesen existed!"

It's not until the words are out of her mouth that she realizes this might be going too far, sounding like she's blaming Alicia for not seeing it. For not leaving Joe sooner.

Exactly what she's been careful not to say, ever since Alicia finally got rid of him.

A year ago, Alicia would have bristled, or turned away, the wound still too raw. Now, all Alicia does is snort. "He's a jerk, yeah. He'd be a jerk as a Fuchsbau, too. And I was an idiot."

Impulsively, Juliette leans forward, hugs Alicia. "Good riddance," she whispers, and Alicia clings to her, not flinching away at all.

Alicia isn't walking out. Alicia can look at her, touch her. Even after Juliette's explosion, she's _here_. Juliette wants to cry. She wants to claw Nick's face apart. She wants to tear out her own heart.

"He just walked out!" bursts from Juliette's mouth, her chin still hooked over Alicia's shoulder. "And then he said ..." She hiccoughs, pulls away. Crosses her arms over her chest, fingers digging in above her elbows. "He said he wasn't going to go anywhere! But he'd already gone."

Alicia stares at her for a moment, taken aback, then nudges the ice cream pot into Juliette's hand.

Juliette swallows. Digs out a huge spoonful, dumps it into her mouth. Too cold, too much. The sting of it is welcome, but it can't overwhelm the heat of her tears. 

"And," she continues, gesturing with the empty spoon, "and, you know what? He couldn't even look at me. But he still pretended it was all fine. What was I supposed to do? Comfort _him_ for having to be in my presence?"

"Welcome to the Lousy Taste in Men club," Alicia says, punching her shoulder. "But I married Joe; I've still got you beat."

Juliette snorts. "At least I didn't turn into a Klaustreich."

They both giggle.

"He loved you a lot," Alicia says, eventually, growing bolder as the night continues with no explosions. "But something like this doesn't seem like it'd come out of nowhere. Were you having problems? You never said."

"No." Juliette blinks. Thinks back. They've never had problems, have they? Well, with curses and such. With Adalind. Not with each other!

Something hysterical is building in the back of her head. She presses her lips together, not sure what will come out if she lets it.

"Juliette?" Alicia holds out a hand. Where has the time gone? The last time they met for coffee, she'd still rubbed her ring finger when she got nervous, a memory of her wedding ring. She hasn't done that once, this time.

Juliette clenches her fingers together. Remembers a ring she once put on her own finger. "He proposed years ago," she whispered. "I turned him down."

She'd told her friends in Portland, at the time. She'd never told Alicia, because of the whole Joe situation. Marriages were too fraught a topic.

"And you weren't having problems?" Alicia says, drily.

Why had she? It hadn't felt right. She'd known Nick was keeping something from her. (He'd had his reasons. But he'd still been lying, hiding the Grimm thing from her. And he'd wanted to keep it that way, as long as he could.)

Later ... they'd been good, once she knew. But they never really talked about that proposal, did they? And Nick kept the engagement ring, but -

Yeah.

She's been angry at him for a while. The thought comes as a revelation. Maybe all her fury right now isn't just because she's ... because of what she's become. 

"I want things to go back to how they were," she bursts out. "Maybe they weren't so good. Maybe we had problems. But I could handle it! It wasn't this."

"Maybe you just need to get away from things for a bit." Alicia hesitates. "He never struck me as the stalkerish type. But he's a Grimm, so what do I know. Is he going to leave you alone?"

"I don't know." Juliette wraps her arms around herself. "He's never been like that. But ..." She forces a bleak smile. "I don't think he gets it. That he can't just will this to be okay. I ..." She swallows, heavily, then lets herself say the words for the first time. "I don't think Nick knows we're breaking up."

"What?" Alicia makes a face. "You said he walked out on you first."

"And came back. And pretended everything was going to be peachy-keen, even though he flinched every time he so much as looked at me." She bared her teeth. "I made him touch me, yesterday. You'd have thought he was being tortured."

Alicia hesitates. "You don't think you can work it out?"

"Didn't you hear me!" It comes out too sharp, and she can see Alicia brace herself against a flinch, and she hates it, she hates it, she hates it. She hates herself. She wants her life back, damn it.

She wants a life back in which she never knew things between her and Nick could go so wrong.

 _He's traumatized,_ her rational brain reminds her. _By Adalind. It's Adalind's fault. She's the one who made him like this._ That's right: it's all Adalind. Maybe that's what she should be doing next - go after Adalind. Find her and tear her apart. Make her stop. Make it all go away.

But will it go away?

She can kill Adalind - she almost managed, when Adalind came to her house and threatened her. And maybe the hunt can carry her for a while - but like that drive to the coast that wound up taking her in a circle, the hunt will have to end. The goal is for it to end. She needs something to sustain her, damn it. Something _more_.

Alicia squares her shoulders. "I heard you. He hurt you. He owes you a huge apology. But you sound ..." She hesitates, looks away, then clearly decides to say it anyway. "You sound like you don't want him back."

Juliette's throat closes up. She swallows, but the lump won't go away. "No," she mumbles. She hadn't thought about it like that, but it rings true: _I don't want him anywhere near me, right now. I don't want him now._ She's not longing for him, wishing he could accept her so she could be with him. Huh. It used to be all she thought of, but it hasn't really been on her mind since yesterday's fight. "I want him away from me." Until everything's better, at least. Until she's better. There's no space for Nick inside her right now, none that isn't filled with hurt and fury.

None that doesn't make things worse.

Alicia nods. "Then you need to tell him. The sooner, the better, before he starts looking for you and makes things worse."

Alicia's echoing her own thoughts. Juliette snorts a laugh. "He would! He totally would. He'd chase after me, even if he couldn't look me in the eye once he did find me. He's a stubborn idiot."

She used to say that with fondness. Now, it's a distant numbness. She needs _space_ , damn it. A space of her own, a life that's not about him. She needs ...

She doesn't know what she needs, only that it has to be out there somewhere. Something new. At least Alicia is giving her a place to figure that out.

But telling Nick? "I don't know how." Alicia is right: she can't move forward until she does - but how?

Alicia smiles, wryly. "Not so easy now, is it."

Juliette used to tell Alicia to get away from Joe, to tell him it was over. Just like the Wesen thing, just like the Grimm thing, she didn't really understand. And Nick is nothing like Joe, but she still needs to get away. 

For both their sakes, before she _really_ blows something up. Something worse than a coffee table.

Juliette bites her lips. "I can't talk to him. He makes me so furious! I want to hurt him. I want him to hurt like he hurt me." Alicia looks away. Juliette takes a deep breath, and adds, "I won't. I won't, okay? Don't look like that."

She really can't stand Alicia looking like that.

Her chin wobbles. "I'm so glad I came here," she murmurs, her voice small. Lost. She grimaces. "Sorry about your coffee table, seriously."

Alicia tilts her head to the side, makes a haughty gesture. "The new one's going to be better." 

She looks at the tablet lying next to her on the sofa, unlocks it again, scrolls. Juliette leans forward to watch, then touches her hand to stop her.

"Look," she exclaims, pointing at a particular listing. "There's one with a fox head!"

Alicia purses her lips. "Shall we look for a witchy one?"

Juliette mock-glares at Alicia, and they both burst into laughter. It's a little bit strained, and a little bit hysterical, but it's still the most comfortable Juliette's been with anyone since before she woged for the first time.

It makes her feel like maybe she can cope with this. With all of this, even talking to Nick.

  
  


* * *

  
  


In the end, Juliette leaves it until the next evening. Nick is probably freaking out, but she can't worry about that right now. She simply doesn't have the emotional capacity; she's barely holding herself together by a shoestring.

But she can do this. With Alicia by her side, holding her hand, smiling encouragingly - Alicia, who knows _all_ about needing to get away - she can turn on her phone, can look at the dozen messages from Nick, and not hurl the thing against the wall. 

She listens to one, then the next. Grinds her teeth. It's all "Juliette, where are you?" and "Juliette, call me, we need to talk about this". How about _I love you, please come home_ \- how about _I'm sorry_? Fury rises again, and she chokes it down. She needs to get this done.

Juliette types out the number she deleted the day before, listens to the ringing. It doesn't ring very long.

"Juliette, where have you been? I've been frantic!" Nick sounds it, too.

She talks over the next question already spilling from him. "Hi, Nick. I'm staying with Alicia for the moment."

That shocks him into a brief silence - a very brief one. "Juliette, let's talk about this -"

"No," she interrupts again. She has to do this. "I need space. We both do."

"I don't think - Juliette, what are you doing?"

She ignores his spluttering, his hurt. (What right does he have to be hurt?) "Nick. I know you want it to be okay, but it's not. You can't even look at me. And I can't stand it." 

"Juliette, please come back." He sounds desperate. And he's not listening to her.

"Nick, you're the one who walked out."

She walked out, too, yesterday. Drove away. Left Portland behind. And she's come back to Portland, all right, but she can't go back to Nick. Not now.

He sucks in a breath so sharp it's audible over background crackle of a not-too-great connection. "I just needed -"

"You came back too soon." The thought is out of her mouth as soon as it occurs to her. 

Silence, long and empty. Then, "What?"

"You can't deal with it," Juliette says, takes a deep breath to steady herself. "Maybe you want to, but you can't. You need to fix that first."

"Juliette, wait -"

"And I need to fix myself first. Are you listening? I'm serious, Nick."

"What does that mean?" he asks, sounding plaintive, lost. She almost wants to smile. Damn, she does still care for him, when she forgets to be furious. When he actually seems like he's listening, not running around in his own panic, making everything worse. "Where does that leave us?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry," Juliette says, and means it. Something in her chest is clenching. "Just ... don't contact me for a while. Take care of yourself, all right?"

"Juliette ..."

She says nothing, and after a moment, he sighs. "You take care, too, okay?"

And that's a decent note to end the call on, after all. Juliette puts her phone back in her handbag, looks at Alicia, and manages a tremulous smile.

Alicia grins at her. "Champagne!" she calls. "This needs champagne." 

And it's almost okay, here on this couch in this apartment, clinking glasses with her friend. It's almost a new start. Though where it might take her, she still has no idea.

  
  


* * *

  
  


"Do you think a Hexenbiest can be a vet?" Juliette asks, later that evening, the bottle of champagne long since finished, the thought appearing out of nowhere.

Alicia gives her a baffled look. "Why on earth not?" She blinks. "You didn't go to work, the last two days. What happened?"

The truth is, Juliette hasn't even thought about work, at all, not until just now. Her old life has seemed like something out of another world. "I called in sick for a few days. But my sick leave's running out. Damn."

"Juliette?"

"Last time I was at the clinic, one of the animals attacked me. Sensed something. I'm _dangerous_." Juliette grimaces, looks away. "Maybe Hexenbiests just can't."

"I doubt it. If it worked like that, people would keep pets to protect them against Hexenbiests," Alicia says, sensibly. "I don't think that's a thing. Maybe you can ask - you've got that apothecary friend, don't you?"

"Rosalee," Juliette says. She hasn't talked to Rosalee since this started. Or Monroe, or any of them. "They're Nick's friends." She'd thought of them as hers, too, but - they're Nick's first.

Alicia huffs. "Fine. Let's find another apothecary. Portland's not the only place in the world."

Juliette swallows, her face working against a sniffle. Her other face is hovering just under the surface, and she reaches for it, lets it flicker over her. Alicia stills for a second, then raises her eyebrows at Juliette.

She still has her friend. Maybe she can still have other parts of her old life, too. Maybe she _can_ build a life as a Hexenbiest - one that's not fury and destruction, one that's not driven and out of control.

Maybe she can, after all, deal with this. Maybe Nick can, too - maybe they're just taking the long way round, all in a circle, coming back in the end.

But even if not: maybe she can, just as Henrietta said, learn to live with it.


End file.
